Halloween's Michael Myers has seen many incarnations during his 29-year reign of terror. While he hasn't yet seen the vastness of space (boldly not going where most horror franchises eventually go), he has met a similar fate -- the remake. Although the majority of horror moviegoers are just looking for the next gore-fest, true horror fans are as rabid as Christians looking to crucify the latest blasphemously-filmed story of Christ. Luckily, director Rob Zombie is a member of the horror genre cult and treats his Halloween remake with the utmost respect, while amping up the intensity for a post-Saw audience.

From the 90-minute Abercrombie and Fitch ad that was 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the abysmal The Hills Have Eyes in 2006, classic horror films have been turned into exploitive, empty filler for the benefit of the box office. Zombie, on the other hand, explores the mythology of the original Halloween by psychologically deconstructing Michael Myers, instead of exploiting the original idea of "The Shape" -- the personified evil of the original. Zombie's film opens with the Myers family; of course, this is a Zombie film, so they are a white trash, long haired clan whose cursing would put sailors to shame. In this Halloween outing, we see Myers' transformation into the infamous serial killer.

Well, comic book freaks can take a breather, as another sci-fi fantasy hits the big screen, this time in the long-awaited, highly-anticipated, it-better-be-good X-Men.

Without too much regret, I can say that X-Men will be palatable to fans and newbies alike. It's not a great film, but it will probably follow the arc of the Superman and Batman movies -- tons of sequels of variable quality until an abrupt and dismal end a decade later.

Well, comic book freaks can take a breather, as another sci-fi fantasy hits the big screen, this time in the long-awaited, highly-anticipated, it-better-be-good X-Men.

Without too much regret, I can say that X-Men will be palatable to fans and newbies alike. It's not a great film, but it will probably follow the arc of the Superman and Batman movies -- tons of sequels of variable quality until an abrupt and dismal end a decade later.

Add Black Mask 2: City of Masks to the big-and-always-getting-bigger pile of sequels that never should have been made. Murky, silly, and shoddy around the edges, only the most obsessed of wire-fu fans need take note.

It didn't have to be that way. With genius Hong Kong director Tsui Hark and equally brilliant fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (of Matrix fame) at the helm, you'd expect something watchable, but in this case, a lame story wrapped in rudimentary CGI effects goes nowhere, despite some high-flying fights that add a few pulses of excitement.

You want supernatural baddies bent on world domination? You got it. Explosions? Check. Super-charged, fly-wire kung-fu fights? They're in ample supply. Highfalutin credibility-lending Shakespearean actors hired to chew scenery? Two, even! Visual effect that wow the audience more with their obvious expense than the impression they leave on the retinas? And how!

Plot, you ask? Dialogue? As simplistic as possible, please, and only when absolutely necessary.

For moviegoers anxious to see Brat Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana oiled up and sweaty in various states of undress, Hollywood's handsome, aggrandized, $200-million-plus swords-and-sandals epic "Troy" has a lot to offer -- a whole lot to offer.

For those seeking a "Gladiator"-style, thinking-person's summer action movie, the film is on shakier ground -- and for folks more interested in watching the Trojan War of Homer's "Iliad" brought to life, brace yourselves for disappointment.

Screenwriter David Benioff ("25th Hour") takes many, many liberties with his source material, some of which are creative and shrewd, like using the mistaken-identity battlefield death of Achilles' look-alike cousin to imply how legends of the warrior's immortality spread in this version of the story which is devoid of gods, demigods and such mythology.